


This Life’s For The Dogs

by PaintingWithWords (paint_with_words)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: #domesticvictuuriweek, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Domestic Victuuri Week 2018, Gen, Humor, M/M, Makkachin - Freeform, Mild Language, doggie dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 13:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paint_with_words/pseuds/PaintingWithWords
Summary: Makkachin’s getting older and it’s harder for her to get into bed.  Viktor & Yuuri decide to make it easier for her.





	This Life’s For The Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [prompt ](https://domesticvictuuriweek.tumblr.com/prompts) "Makkachin/doggie dads" for day one of Domestic Victuuri Week 2018.

Viktor noticed when he and Makkachin returned to Saint Petersburg that it was getting harder for her to get into bed. His bed in Japan had been lower to the ground and Makka could easily climb in beside him. But she was getting older, and she couldn’t jump and leap the way she used to, although she certainly tried. She’d put her front paws on the bed, wag her tail, and whine at him. Being well-trained, Viktor would get behind her and give her a gentle little boost to help her up, but he knew something had to be done. 

He looked online and found several different styles of doggie ramps and stairs, but none of them looked quite right, and many were designed with smaller dogs in mind and looked too flimsy to support the weight of bigger breeds. It was almost as if no one wanted to help a larger, aging dog with mobility issues get on the bed, and it disappointed and saddened him. 

“Don’t worry, girl,” he said, giving her head a good scratch as she cuddled with him on the couch, “we’ll find a solution to this problem.” 

“Why don’t we build one for her?” Yuuri suggested later in the week when he brought it up during one of their Facetime dates. 

“Build one?” Viktor echoed. “Out of what?” 

“Wood, nails, glue, and carpet. We can do it in an afternoon.” He’d watched Yuuri help his father out with the occasional small repair project around the onsen. 

“I’ve never built anything before, Yuuri,” he said, frowning. The spice rack he’d made as a child for Yakov hardly counted. It had been a kit and came with precut pieces of wood and a bottle of the most disgusting glue he’d ever seen in his life. He’d followed the directions perfectly and it had still looked like shit. 

“It’s not hard,” Yuuri said. “We’ll get what we need. You’ve got a hammer and nails, right?” 

“Of course,” Viktor replied, looking at the framed art on the walls. He’d hung those… or did he pay the interior designer to do it? He’d paid him to take care of pretty much everything in the apartment, from the furniture to the appliances to the color scheme. Did he actually have a hammer? Suddenly he wasn’t sure. 

Yuuri must’ve seen the flash of doubt that crossed his face. His smile lit up Viktor’s phone, making him feel better. 

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll buy everything when I get there.” 

“Are you sure? I could just email my interior designer and see if he could build one for us.” Viktor began composing the email in his head. On his screen, Yuuri looked down his glasses at him. 

“I built a dog house for Vicchan when I was twelve, all by myself,” Yuuri fussed. “I- no, _we_ \- can do this.” 

They didn’t get around to shopping for the supplies until Yuuri had been there for almost two weeks. The first few days after he arrived, Yuuri had been adjusting to life in Saint Petersburg, which was colder and darker than he was used to during the dead of winter, as well as six hours behind Hasetsu. Then his things arrived from Japan, and they had to rearrange the apartment to accommodate his belongings, few though they were. And all of this was happening around a full training schedule, which didn’t leave room for much else. 

But Yuuri saw how hard it was for poor Makka to get into bed. He helped her up as often as Viktor did and they both knew they needed to remedy the situation. One night, Yuuri pulled out a notepad and sketched out a roughly triangular ramp with a shallow slope while Viktor made dinner. They talked about it as they ate, each of them making changes to the design until they were both happy with how it looked and how easy it should be to build. Viktor began to feel like maybe they could actually do this. 

That weekend, they went to the hardware store and picked up all the necessary supplies. The wood had to be cut to the correct shape and size, but they found the perfect bathroom rug for the carpeted portion of the ramp completely by accident two aisles over. They counted themselves lucky that they were going to be able to get everything in one place and in one trip. Viktor was actually excited when they piled into the taxi to head home with their supplies, thrilled that they would be doing something together to help Makkachin. This was what a true partnership was, right? 

But looks were deceiving. All the pieces of wood fit together properly to make the ramp, but Yuuri said they needed to glue everything as well as nail it for extra stability. The glue was the exactly the same as the nasty yellow shit he’d used on Yakov’s poor excuse for a spice rack years ago and Viktor hated it. And then Yuuri told him they were going to have to actually nail the ramp into shape, because the glue needed time to set. They’d only managed to hammer a couple of nails in when someone came to the door and banged on it sharply with the heel of a shoe. Yuuri jumped and Viktor went to take care of the angry neighbor, a woman in her mid-forties who cursed him when he opened the door. 

“I’m going to complain about all the noise coming out of here,” she snarled at him, looking like she’d just woken up, which Viktor hoped wasn’t the case. “You’re not the only one who lives in this building, you know.” 

To avoid more threats of noise complaints, they decided to go outside, despite the cold. They disassembled and hauled everything to the elevator and waited for it to arrive. Viktor’s confidence that they could actually do this was beginning to fade, especially when a board slipped as they were getting on the elevator and got glue all over his jeans. When they got to the ground floor, a young couple with a small child and groceries was waiting to get on, and the husband grumbled loudly about how long it took some people to get out of the elevator. And while Yuuri couldn’t understand the words, it was clear to Viktor that he understood the tone. Viktor sighed. He would make it up to Yuuri later. 

They hauled the boards through the lobby, past the row of mailboxes in the hall and out the back entrance. As they stepped outside, Viktor noticed that Yuuri had somehow managed to get glue in his hair. Well, Yuuri had told him it would wash out of his jeans, so it’d wash out of his hair, right? 

Viktor followed Yuuri into the parking lot behind the building, past the dumpster towards the spaces that were rarely used. With a sigh, Yuuri set his boards and supplies down in a parking space and Viktor did the same. 

They liberally applied more glue to the sticky edges, as too much had rubbed off of them during transport. Viktor certainly hoped this would work, because when they were done, he was going to throw that damn glue away. He’d prefer to encase it in concrete and drop in in the river, but just getting it out of his damn house would be enough. He watched as Yuuri silently began to put the pieces back together and reached for the hammer. Viktor handed him nails as needed, and slowly, as they worked together in the cold and the dwindling hours of daylight, the ramp began to take shape. Viktor smiled, once again hopeful that they could do this. 

A couple of teenagers smoking behind the dumpster watched them as they worked and laughed at them. The teens pulled out their phones and began recording their efforts. Their attitudes reminded Viktor of Yurio, but they possessed none of Yurio’s discipline and drive. Yuuri ignored them, but Viktor smiled and waved at them, just to piss them off. Eventually they left, clearly no longer entertained by two men assembling a ramp in the middle of winter in a parking space. 

Once most of the frame had been assembled, Viktor asked if he could hammer in a few of the nails. He was beginning to feel more confident and he wanted to do more than just hold wood while Yuuri did all the work. Yuuri smiled and handed him the hammer. It wasn’t until Viktor was hammering in the second nail that he missed and hit Yuuri’s thumb instead. 

Yuuri’s reaction was immediate: he yelped something that Viktor was sure was an obscenity, let go of the wood, and stuck his thumb in a small patch of snow. Viktor dropped the hammer and joined Yuuri, horrified that he’d hit his thumb and worried that he’d done real damage to his fiancé. 

“It’s okay,” Yuuri gritted through his teeth. “I’m fine.” But the grimace on his face said otherwise. 

“Let me see,” Viktor coaxed, and finally Yuuri relented. His thumb was already swollen and bruised, a mottled purple underneath the nail. Viktor frowned and began to gingerly examine it, whispering apologies and endearments as he did so. Yuuri hissed once, but otherwise remained quiet during Viktor’s examination. After a few minutes, once it was obvious that no lasting damage had been done, they resumed work on the ramp. Yuuri even encouraged Viktor to keep hammering the nails. But this time, Yuuri’s hands were much further away from the offending hammer. 

Before all was said and done, Viktor managed to smash his own thumb with the hammer as well, causing another work stoppage. Yuuri fussed over Viktor’s thumb almost as much as Viktor had fussed over Yuuri’s. Viktor added the hammer to his mental list of things to throw away once this was over. He pictured flinging it into the river alongside the offending bottle of glue, and the mental image made him smile. 

Finally, after almost an entire day’s worth of work, the ramp was done. It wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but it was sturdy and functional. Viktor sat back and smiled, feeling accomplished. Who knew it would be so much work? But he knew that hard work paid off in the end. 

“Let’s get it back inside,” Yuuri said and Viktor frowned. If it had been a pain getting it into the elevator before, it was really going to suck now. Luckily, no one was waiting for the elevator in the lobby and it was empty once it arrived. They rode up in exhausted silence. All too soon, they arrived at their floor and had to wrestle the ramp out and down the hall to their apartment. Once they were inside, Yuuri insisted that they should put it in the closet. 

“We still have to glue the bath rug on,” Yuuri said, looking tired. “If Makka gets on it while it’s still wet, it could get messed up. We could end up with the rug bunched up at the foot and nothing but wood at the top.” 

Reluctantly, Viktor helped him maneuver the ramp into the closet, and watched as Yuuri coated the slope with more of the offending wood glue. Together, they laid the rug over the ramp and pressed it down into the glue. Yuuri secured the rug with a couple of nails at the top and then closed the door, shutting the ramp in the closet for the night where it could finish drying undisturbed. 

Viktor was afraid that something was still going to go wrong, that somehow or another they would have managed to glue the ramp to the carpet in the closet and that he’d have to call maintenance to come and pry it off. But in the morning, they had no difficultly moving it out of the closet and into place at the foot of the bed. 

That night, Makkachin walked up the ramp and easily stepped onto the bed, where she curled up right in between the two of them. Laughing, they gave her scratches behind her ears and received her happy, sloppy kisses in return. 

Viktor knew it had all been worth it. All the disparaging comments from disgruntled neighbors and snide snickers from teenagers had been nothing when compared to the happiness of his beloved dog. Even their matching smashed thumbs, which made quite the splash on Instagram when he posted the picture he’d taken of them side by side, were totally worth giving Makkachin the opportunity to come and go as she pleased. 

Proud of what they’d done for Makkachin, Viktor also posted pictures of the ramp they’d built. Yurio had commented that it looked awful, and Viktor laughed when he saw Yakov’s reply: “You should have seen the spice rack he built me”. 

Now he just had to get rid of that godawful glue and that damn hammer…

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! As always, comments & kudos are appreciated. You can find me on Tumblr at [paintingwithwords](http://paintingwithwords.tumblr.com). Come say hello. :-)
> 
> You can find my other fics [here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/paint_with_words/pseuds/paint_with_words).


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